The Thing Is
by ithinkyourewonderful
Summary: Posted BEFORE the Christmas special - we see how the months between the break up and the wedding play out for Caroline, who has grown bolder during her time alone and Kate, who still isn't having any of her apologies and how the wedding plays out between them.


Disclaimer: Not mine (if they were, we'd have a lot more of Caroline walking about in heels and a lot less angst).

AN: If you liked it or hated it, please drop a line in the **reviews** section? Pretty please?

Summary: Caroline has grown bolder during her time alone - but Kate still isn't having any of her apologies. Kate's wounded pride however may not be a match against the conspiring forces of Christmas and Alan and Celia's wedding.

.~

It isn't often Caroline Elliot admitted defeat.

.

More often than not, her stubbornness shone through and drove her, gave her strength to preserver and overcome and do exactly what others said she couldn't do. The trouble was, after a while, it became exhausting to run on fumes, to reach deep down and draw on yourself when there's nothing left to draw upon. So when Kate told her under no uncertain terms that they were through, that they never even started, Caroline accepted and admitted defeat. It was easier than to let herself be hurt, be wounded, to have to try to be anything other than what she was: a middle aged creature of habit who was clearly incapable of learning or developing the skills it took to be in a relationship with a woman like Kate.

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Something curious happened though, in the months where she was alone. The pain didn't lessen, but she found a way to move past it. She learned how to be Caroline again. She learned how to read her favourite books all over again. She learned how to enjoy the taste of wine instead of the hazy blur it cast over her life. She learned how to sleep alone without the heartbeat or the breath of another. She learned how to to enjoy long baths and Sunday morning lie-ins and the joy of not having to share the paper. When she needed company, she learned to ask for it, taking pleasure in the company of her almost-step-sister as they popped out for a movie, or a stroll down the high street, talking about this and that. Their lives were so vastly different than the other but their troubles so similar: children who grew up too soon, partners who moved on, and the feeling that life was passing them by.

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It wasn't until Beverly found her making her way down the second floor corridor Caroline considers she could claim her life back. Of course, at the time, she doesn't see it as that. She doesn't see anything past Beverly letting her know that "Kate's driven herself into hospital...". Surely Beverly knows they're not together anymore, but Beverly's always been there for Caroline in more ways then she could count. Not as a friend, but more importantly, as someone she could trust. It's as she drives herself over to the hospital that Caroline felt the spark, just a little ember in her stomach. If anything happened to Kate, if anything happened to the baby, she... She doesn't know what...

.

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"Kate?" Caroline pushed the door open and swept into the room in a bundle of blond blazing energy, stopping short when she sees Kate, in the hospital bed. She isn't sure how close to go, how far to stay. So she lingers.

"Caroline? What are you doing here?"

"Beverly told me you'd driven yourself to hospital! Kate, I'd like to hope you don't think me heartless enough not to check on you despite..." She shook her head. This was not the time not the place. "I couldn't not... Come. Are you…both…alright?" She resisted the urge to step closer to the bed, towards her... Her Kate.

.

Not anymore, but certainly at one point.

.

Kate didn't respond, or couldn't. She simply picked at the cotton sheet draped over her. "The silent treatment? Grow up Kate!" Caroline snapped, unable to take it. She'd love it if she could get through the rest of her life without ever seeing or talking to the other woman, but that wasn't the case, in life sometimes you had to do the things you dreaded the most. "I'll leave before Greg comes, if that's what you're worried about. I just... I just wanted to know you're ok. That you're both…ok." Kate still couldn't or wouldn't look at her. "Kate, please?"

.

Nothing.

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"Well you can sulk all you want Kate but I'm not leaving until you can tell me what happened, and I warn you -" Caroline dragged a chair from the wall to the bedside and settles into it. "I've raised two teenage boys and an alcoholic writer so experience is most certainly on my side."

"You can go, Caroline, I don't want you here."

"You shouldn't be alone."

"Greg will be here soon."

"Well..." Caroline swallows her pain, "I'll just sit here until he does."

.

Greg never comes.

.

Caroline is relieved at this, she doesn't even let herself hope that Kate never called him. Hope hurt too much. She simply was grateful she didn't have to watch him fawn over her Kate. Because she is, in some way, still hers. Her heart will always ache at the thought of her. She's not young enough to believe her life will stop, no, Caroline had learned from a very early age that the cruelest trick life plays is allowing your eyes to open every morning when you have nothing to open them for.

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She contemplates this as she tries not look at Kate, looking out the window. It's not until the nurse finally arrives with Kate's discharge papers that Caroline learns that both mother and child are fine. It's only then that she starts to tear up, realizing how terrified she was for not only Kate, having come so close so many times, but for Kate's child. The child that was almost, once, theirs.

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It's made very clear that Kate cannot drive herself home with the medication still running through her system. Caroline steps out in the hall to give Kate a few moments of privacy as she sorts herself, does she allow herself the chance to think about Kate's child. She won't deny that when she heard of Kate's history with pregnancy, she had hoped… But Kate was pregnant, and if Caroline didn't already want Kate back in her life with every fibre of her being, she wanted it all the more now. Kate had kept saying it would be 'their' child - and Caroline didn't understand what that meant, what -

"I've called a taxi, Caroline." Kate finally spoke, having stepped out of the room a moment before, only to watch Caroline, her eyes closed as she leaned against the wall. Caroline opens her eyes and takes Kate in, the seriousness of the other woman, the icy distance that made the sparse feet between them seem like miles. "Do you really hate me so much, Kate?"

"I don't hate you Caroline, not anymore. But it hurts enough to be near you that I won't do it. Not again."

"I see." And she does, she can see the resolve, the strength, this was no longer the same woman who sat across from her on the bench in her garden saying she wasn't strong enough to stay away. She nods and forces her mouth into a smile. "Well, get home safely then, you two." She turns on her heel and walks down the hall, thankful she has no more tears to shed.

.

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She wakes up the next morning and tells Beverly she'll be late as she drives over to Kate's.

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To Kate's credit, she doesn't seem surprised at Caroline's appearance, merely annoyed, but lets her in and leads her to the sitting room. All the words, the speeches and declarations of love she had planned leave her now, to where she can do nothing but sit across from Kate and wordlessly open and shut her mouth. She realizes now that there is nothing that could be said. The best she can hope for is for Kate's forgiveness for being such a horrible partner. So she says as much, how sorry she was, and then she rises from her seat to leave and in a swift motion, brings her right hand to gently graze Kate's cheek. She feels the other woman lean into it for a moment before Caroline moves away.

.

She drives to Sulgrave Heath without thinking about what it meant that Kate leaned into her touch, or that there was nary a sight of anything in that house that could belong to Greg. No, she forced herself to think about her mother and Alan's wedding. She forced herself to think about how William would get home from Oxford. She forced herself to think about anything but Kate's skin against hers.

.

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From that point on, the two women don't exist to one another, unless in public and even then, they may stand beside one another, and they may speak, but they do not look at one another. Caroline cannot allow her heart to break anymore than it already does in the younger woman's presence. Kate, meanwhile, cannot allow her resolve to weakentowards the blond woman because every day that passes confuses her a little more. She had wanted a child, her own child, for as long as she could recall. She ached for it, and now that that day was here, now that she was pregnant, she was terrified. More than that she was exhausted, she was moody, she was lonely, she was tired of spending half her day face down in a toilet retching what little she could stomach to eat. Her body shifted and morphed every day until it became unrecognizable. This was what they don't tell you in the books, and the shows and the movies. In her more dire moments, she would close her eyes and imagine Caroline beside her, rubbing her back or smoothing her hair and she would only hate herself a little that it was the only thing that helped.

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One afternoon Kate stepped out of the stall to find a bottle of ginger ale and a packet of gum by the sink with a post it that read in Caroline's neat script: "The gum helps. I promise."

.

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It's not until the annual Christmas concert where they make eye contact, entirely by accident, mind you, and Kate feels something inside her crack, She wants this baby, yes, but she wants it with Caroline. She wants Caroline. She wants her like she's never wanted her.

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Caroline was standing on stage, introducing something or other, and with a turn of her head, landed on Kate, standing before her, ready to lead the Choir as they sat in the stalls. To her credit, Caroline continued speaking, but Kate could see the blush rise to her face and wonders if the other woman could tell.

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She knows Caroline is avoiding her for the rest of the evening. She can see the other woman step away from her, lead a parent in a conversation towards the opposite end of wherever she happened to be. She doesn't know why, but she needs to talk to her. Needs to be touched by her. Frustrated at being dodged, Kate decides to be strategic.

.

She has become a different person since pregnant. It's as if pregnancy and the urge to protect her child have given her purpose and direction. The challenge is when they change their purpose and direction every 15 minutes. It's the hormones, she knows this, but right now this need for Caroline isn't simply hormonal, it's elemental.

.

So she waits in the hall across from Caroline's office. It's dark, but lights from the yard shine brightly through the windows. She doesn't wait long, soon she can hear the staccato of Caroline's heels on the floor. They're slower than usual, the other woman must be tired. She doesn't see Kate until it's too late and she's at her office door. "Kate? I assumed you left. Excellent job with the choir…" She beings talking, unsure of why Kate is approaching her until her back is against the wall and… "Caroline." Kate whispers before she joins their lips together.

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She can't help herself - in that moment, being offered what she's craved from the other woman, she takes it. She lets Kate grab her hip and she relishes the strange feel of the other woman's body pressing into hers. "Oh Kate." She moans, as Kate moves her mouth down her neck.

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And then the kisses stop.

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It seems Kate's purpose and direction have changed once more.

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Horrified, Kate pulls back. She looks at Caroline, her hair and her lipstick mussed. Neither of them understand how they got here. "Caroline, I'm sorry. I should, I should go." And with that Kate turns on her heel and all but runs out of the school. She never should've does this. She never should've done any of it. She should've stayed with Richard, she never should've told Caroline she fancied her, she never should've believed Caroline when she said she loved her, she never should've done any of it.

.

She's still in the midst of panicking in her car when she notices Caroline finally exit the building and head towards hers. She hopes Caroline doesn't see that she's still there, but instead she sees Caroline turn and watch Kate in her car for a moment before she pulls something out of her purse - suddenly her mobile rings from beside her in the car. Even though she's deleted the contact, she knows the number is Caroline's. She picks up but doesn't say anything. "I have missed you." Caroline softly says, "I hope you know that." And with that, Caroline hangs up the phone, gets into her car, and drives off.

.

.

"So, what I've always wondered is..." Gillian begins as she helps Caroline unload armfuls from the Land Rover, parked in front of the inn. "What's it like, you know...Snogging someone who's all pregnant?"

"Oh Lord." Caroline mutters, wishing she had never shared that tidbit with Gillian last night as they finished off three bottles of wine along with the last minute wedding preparations.

"What, I'm curious! Is it like, this giant football being pressed against you or -"

"You know Judith's pregnant?"

"What?!" Gillian stops short for a moment, "Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously." Caroline stops and turns to face the other woman. "Life clearly has a better sense of humour than I do." She catches something in Gillian's eye. Not sadness, not really, but something none the less. "You all right?" She felt odd asking, but then again, everything about her relationship with Gillian was odd, as if they had parallel but perpendicular lives. "Yeah," Gillian nodded, smiling. "Just…"

"Hurts a little?"

"Not like, hurts hurts, but…everyone's moving on you know?"

"And we're still here."

.

The two women stand there in the sun for a moment, thinking about what could've been and with whom.

.

"Come on then," Gillian grins, cocking her head, "We've got a wedding to attend to."

"That we do!" Caroline chuckles, as she continues to lead the way in through the lobby and towards the small hall rented for the reception.

"I was meaning to tell you - I spoke to the manager this morning."

"Oh I can't even look at her."

"Why not?! She's so lovely. You know what she said, she told me to be sure to let my 'partner' know she's bumped us to the head of the cancelation list, you know, should you ever be ready."

"Nope, never. Never going to happen." They enter the room and begin to set things down.

"How can you be so cruel? Never Caroline, never?" Gillian bats her lashes towards the blond as they begin to unpack their packages.

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"What'll never happen?" A soft voice asks from behind them.

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"Convincing our Caroline here to make - an honest woman out of me." Gillian's voice halts as she turns around to see a woman in the doorway. "You must be Kate."

"Caroline's reaction give it away?" Kate teases, lingering in the doorway but smiling at the silent blond woman.

"Well, the stomach more than anything. I'm Gillian. Gillian Greenwood. Alan's daughter." She moves forward to shake Kate's hand. "That was…just a… a bit of a laugh really. Funny story."

"Really?"

"Yeah, when Caroline brought me here to consider it for the wedding, they thought it was for our wedding."

"One of my many women, I believe you said." Caroline comments, coolly, as she beings to unpack and place the seat markers

"I can't imagine how they would've gotten that impression?" Kate tries to tease once more, a smile spreading across her face.

"Not can I."

"Really Caroline? 'Cause I always thought you had a bit of a 'power lesbian' thing going, very posh, with the shoes and the suits and the hair and the shoulder pads -"

"Those are my shoulders, Granny." Caroline comments, not looking up.

"Oh, well. I stepped into that one."

"Just a little." She miffs, praying that floor would open and swallow any one of the women up.

"Well… I think I've helped enough. I'm going to, you know, check on that thing… That's not here?"

"Our parents?"

"Sure." Gillian pulls her mobile from her pocket and takes one more look at the two women, Kate who only had eyes for Caroline, and Caroline who's eyes were firmly anywhere but Kate. "That…wasn't very smooth at all, was it?" she asks the woman still standing in the doorway.

"Not at all, but it was a very nice try."

"Thanks." Gillian cocks her head towards the blond, motioning for Kate to step into the room, as she steps out. She can't help but like this woman, she thinks to herself as she walks away, for all the heartbreak she's wrought on her friend. There's something in her smile, the softness in her eyes towards Caroline.

"Caroline."

"Yes."

"Look at me?"

"No."

"Please?"

"Your hair is down."

"What?"

"Your hair is down," Caroline repeats, still focused on the task at hand of laying a program on each seat in the hall. "The last time you wore it down was that night, so no, Kate, I won't look at you. What are you even doing here?"

"Alan asked me to play as your mother walked down the aisle. He said you wouldn't mind."

"I…I don't."

"I just… I just came to practice. But I can leave, Caroline, I can come back later."

"No." Caroline finally raises her head to meet Kate's eyes. "I've got to get ready anyway." She gathers her purse and makes her way out the room.

.

"Well." Kate sighs softly to no one in particular. "That went well."

.

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"Oh, go on you two!" Caroline smiles at Raff and Ellie, looking longingly at the dance floor.

"You sure Caroline?" Raff asks, grinning up.

"She's a bit of a fusspot." Ellie warns, already raising the baby towards the other woman.

"Well I don't know, I've only raised two sons. Probably wouldn't be able to handle our Miss Calamity here," She teases, "But I'm willing to try." She gladly takes the baby into her arms and almost completely ignores the twinge of pain in her heart. "Oh, go on you too!" She shoos them away, "We'll be fine, won't we, Miss Jane?" Caroline coos towards the baby as the gently sway to the music.

.

She's so busy watching her family dancing and having fun - for they were her family now, they had been long before tonight, for better and worse, the Buttershaw-Greenwood-Elliots were family - that she doesn't hear Kate so much as feel her brush her shoulder. "Spot of spit up on you." Kate murmurs as she dries the other woman's shoulder and gently places a cloth napkin beneath Calamity's head. "Is this the famous Emily Jane?" She asks, letting the baby grab a firm hold of her finger. She doesn't notice that she's dropped her other hand to rest on her own growing belly.

"Calamity to her nearest and dearest, but yes."

"You're a natural, Caroline." Kate marvels softly as she takes in her ex gently rocking. Calamity has grown sleepy and has let go of her finger, curling up into her minder's arms.

"I've just had practice." Caroline responds, trying to take her eyes off of the other woman. Whenever she thought her heart could not break any smaller, any further, it would. It would seem Kate simply grew more beautiful as time went on. It was her way with everything - she was just there every day, smiling, and being there, being Kate until Caroline couldn't help but notice how pretty she was, how dear and how the days never seemed as bright without her. "You, you'll be a natural."

"I don't know -"

"You will. I just…" Her voice waivers slightly, "I just know it. You're even glowing."

"It's just the light."

"No Kate," She shifts a drowsy Calamity from one arm to the other, she had forgotten how heavy they could be. "You're beautiful. Even more beautiful. Motherhood suits you." She forces herself not to to tear up, but the smile comes naturally. Kate was indeed radiant in the dim light of the hall, her cheeks flushed in the warmth, her eyes sparkling as she gazes at Emily Jane.

"The thing is, Caroline, I miss you." She keeps her eyes on Calamity.

"Kate, you don't -"

"I do." She takes a deep breath and looks up into the other woman's eyes. "I get home after work, and it's so quiet, you know, my house. And so empty. And I turn around to talk to you, to tell you something, and remind myself, you're not there, at least half a dozen times a day."

"It'll pass."

"It will, I know. I know." She reassures herself as much as the woman in front of her. "I don't know if it's just the hormones, or if it's all this," She waves around at the wedding, "Or if it's seeing you stand there with Calamity, that makes me want this to be our baby, yours and mine, so that one day, I can turn around and see you holding our baby, rocking our baby to sleep."

"Kate, you don't mean that and really, it's cruel of you to say that -" She needs to sit. She can't stay standing, not anymore. It's Kate, looking radiant, saying all the things she's imagined Kate saying to her since the last time they were here, but it wasn't real. It couldn't be real.

"Caroline, do you know what I kept thinking of when Greg and I were together?" She asks, sitting down in the chair beside Caroline so that their knees were touching.

"No Kate, I'm afraid I don't. I don't know what was going on in your head that entire weekend or afterwards."

"I just kept wishing he was you, Caroline. In my head, I kept imagining it was you. Even after everything, I just wanted you."

"Kate please don't -" She can't look at the other woman so she looks just past her. She knew today would be hard the moment she saw Kate standing there, but this was too much.

"It's true - I just kept pretending it was you there with me," She gently takes Caroline's free hand and places it on her stomach. "That this was our baby."

"No. No!" Caroline snatches her hand back as if she'd been burned, her eyes blazing as she find's Kate's, her voice a steely whisper to not wake the child in her arms. "Kate, you don't get to do this, you don't get to treat me like... Like I'm nothing, and then tell me you wished it was me there with you. I died, Kate, I died knowing what you two did, and you don't get to come back and tell me the same things John said to me -"

"Caroline, no."

"Yes Kate. Because I want nothing more than to there with you, through all of this! I want nothing more than to be able to be a mother to our child - but I can't, because if I do something wrong again, if I disappoint you, or let you down, how do I know you won't leave, you won't take our child with you?" And there it was, the truth and the motivation behind Caroline Elliot's every move. She pauses for a moment to realize she has just said what she has always believed but never once been able to say: people leave her, they always leave her and they don't come back. "Because Kate, I will disappoint you, I will let you down, it's what I do, it's what I've always done. I will never be enough for you, and I will never be enough for our child -"

"You keep saying our child." Kate smiles gently, taking the other woman's hand back and holding it in her lap. This is 'scared Caroline', almost like a child playing at being a grown-up. Kate can handle this. What's more, she knows, having gotten past 'distant Caroline' and 'indifferent Caroline' to 'scared Caroline', she's close to just… Caroline. "I'm sorry - I wasn't thinking…"

"She." Kate says, smiling, waiting for the words to sink in.

"What?"

"She." Kate repeats again, "She's a girl."

"A girl?"

"That's usually what a she is,"

"Cheeky." Caroline teases as she shifts Calamity in her arms once more.

"We're going to have a little girl, Caroline." Kate whispers, before leaning in, raising a hand to the other woman's cheek and placing a soft kiss on her lips. "That is, if you're willing to try this…again?"

"Oh Kate." Caroline sighs, her breath tickling Kate who was still only inches way, still palming her cheek. "And what if…" She can't finish these words. She can't finish these thoughts.

"Caroline, I don't presume to have all the answers - I thought that was your job." She slyly slips in, "I don't know what's going to happen. All I know is I miss you and I'm tired of being without you, of punishing you, of punishing both of us for something... That made me fall in love with you. Want to be with you."

"What? My neuroses?" She wants to look away, she wants to be able to hide what she suspects are tears that are blurring her vision of her Kate, she wants this to stop, to be able to know this isn't a cruel joke, but Kate simply smiles at her before placing another soft kiss on her lips before breaking out into a huge grin. "I think we have company, Caroline."

.

The two women pull apart, to see the Bride smirking and Groom beaming above them. "All right, that's enough you two - you're upstaging us." Celia teases.

"Never mum, you're the most gorgeous creature here."

"And don't you forget it." She places a hand on Caroline's shoulder, "But Kate here's a very close second."

.

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Hand in hand, they're making their way up the steps towards the bedrooms when Caroline stops short.

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The Inn is all but empty - with everyone but the wedding party asleep. As they stand there, on the stairs, Caroline can hear her heart pounding louder that the music, a sudden fear overcomes her and she can't move. She feels Kate curl up behind her, dropping a quick kiss on her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"Did you mean what you said? About…nothing having started?" Caroline asks, her stomach dropping at having this happy ending ruined so quickly before it ever really started. She should've never even believed in this possibility.

"What?"

"When you … at breakfast…that day…" She doesn't want to say the words. "I asked if you were dumping me and you said nothing even started, just some misguided…fumblings…"

"Oh Caroline," Kate whispers, guiding her to the wall along the the stairs, seeing the terror in her lover's eyes. "I was hurt, so hurt, and I would've said anything."

"But you said those things…" She whispered, biting her lip and looking anywhere but Kate's eyes.

"And I can't take them back."

"If we go up there and…"

"And…?"

"What if I'm not enough again?"

"Oh Caroline -"

"You're saying that an awful lot tonight." she smiles, blinking the tears from her lashes. Because that's the question everyone has ever had, what if I'm not enough?

"Caroline," Kate begins, placing a hand on each of the other woman's cheeks, "If I tell you something, will you believe me?"

"It depends on what it is."

"No, this is a yes or no question. And this is what will ultimately make or break us. So if I tell you something, will you believe me?" She doesn't plead, she doesn't beg. Because this time, for the first time, she feels they're equals in this relationship. She has come back not because she was asked, but because she wants to. Because he has learned to love the other woman, flaws and all.

"Yes." Caroline whispers. Kate nods and steps away, slipping her hand back into Caroline's. "Lead the way then."

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Curious, Caroline guides them to her room and opens the door to the near darkness, save for the moon streaming in through the open curtains. She hears the door click behind her she turns and is slightly dizzy at being so close to Kate. Then again, Kate always had that effect on her. Kate places her hands on her face once more and looks into her eyes. "Caroline Elliot, I am going to say this and I need you to hear me and I need you to believe me. You are enough."

"Kate -"

"No, no arguments, no deferring, no denials. You are strong, and smart, and so beautifully flawed and you are enough." They can both feel the tingle between them as their breath mingles together, their bodies not-quite-touching, their eyes locked onto one another. "You are enough and you have to believe me and you have to accept it, because soon there will be a little girl who will love you as much as I do and who will need you to believe it as well. You asked what if I leave you, but if we do this, if we do this with our child, we both need to be better. And that starts here and now. That starts with you believing you're enough for us, for your family."

"My stomach just dropped."

"Good or bad?"

"Good." She leans in to kiss Kate, "So very good." she murmurs against her lips. This means, this means she has Kate back, and she'll be a mother. The boys will have a little sister and she has Kate back. She has Kate back. By some divine intervention, she has been given another chance, when she's already squandered so many of them. She feels her heart swell with joy, and excitement and anticipation with a hundred other unnamed emotions.

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Their kiss quickly turns from joyous to something deeper, something more elemental.

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"Oh Caroline," Kate moans as the other woman pushes her against the wall, "Keep saying that Kate..." She teases as she works her mouth to Kate's jaw and up to her earlobe. Her hand quickly finds a path to run, sliding up and down Kate's side until it brushes against the her breast and Kate loudly gasps in her ear. "I'm...A little more sensitive..."

"It's the hormones... I remember that much... Don't worry... I'll be gentle...enough" Caroline smirks as her hands do what they will.

.

She had spent so many nights fighting the thoughts of what she would do if she had one more night with Kate - she wasn't going to waste it - there was a very good chance Kate would wake up tomorrow and reconsider... But it wouldn't be for Caroline's lack of trying, of using every means at her disposal to let the other woman know how loved she was, how very valued.

.  
~

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It's the unusual sensation spreading across her stomach that jolts Kate awake - it's a feeling she's had before and would never like to repeat. Her eyes pop open and are greeted by a halo of disheveled blond hair.

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The sensation stops.

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Her heart slows back down and she closes her eyes once more, smiling. It's ok. It's ok - it's not what once was. It's ok. Her family was here, they weren't going anywhere. "Good morning Kate." Caroline whispers, pulling her hand away."

"I'm not awake yet. And don't stop." She reaches for Caroline's hand and places it back on her stomach. "We like it."

"Oh, do we now?" Caroline teases as she returns to letting her fingers dance over her lover's stomach. She remembers how much she loved being touched by John during her pregnancy. She can't believe this is what it's like on the other side. To be so removed, yet so connected by love to this child that she had no hand in creating.

"We do." Kate responds, stretching her limbs, her eyes still closed. She can feel a dampness on her shoulder. "Are you crying?"

"No." Caroline lies, wiping her tears with the back of her hand before changing the subject. "Have you thought of any names for…"

"For our daughter?"

"For our daughter."

"I had a whole laundry list before… and since I've found out, I've been terrified, you know, of getting too attached and…having to say…goodbye." She only allows herself to feel a little sad at the losses she's suffered in the past. "Now all I can think of… What do you think about… Well, about Eleanor?"

"Eleanor?" Caroline lets the name linger as she moves her body up across Kate's to greet her with a kiss, "Eleanor is perfect."

.

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They finally manage to rise from bed and ready for the day. They have agreed to save the serious conversations for later, they will allow themselves the luxury of staying like this for just a little longer. They have so much to discuss, so much to talk about, but they will make these decisions together.

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Hand in hand they make their way downstairs and towards the dining room where their family is gathered, tucking into a late breakfast. "Ah, here comes our Kate and Caroline!" Alan greets them, waving them over.

"We had just about given up on the two of you - was about to send a tray up, Ladies." Gillian smirks as she pours herself another mug of coffee. "You'd think they were on their honeymoon instead of us, right love?" Celia chimes in, kissing Alan's cheek and motioning to the two empty chairs beside her. Caroline give's Kate's hand a squeeze before letting go to help her into her chair. "Oh Granny, that's me mum and Kate!" Lawrence grimaces as he shovels his eggs into his mouth.

"No more Ms. McKenzie?" Caroline asks, eyebrow raised.

"Well it's too late for that now isn't it?" Lawrence shrugs.

"The thing is Caroline," Gillian warns from across the table. "Who's gonna tell the Inn manager you dumped me for Kate?"

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The End.

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As always, feel free to drop a line in the **reviews** section.


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